Dennis Rader, the man known as the BTK killer, claimed ten victims in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991, taunting police and media with letters that detailed his crimes. After more than a decade of silence, he resumed sending letters in 2004, a decision that led directly to his arrest and his guilty plea in 2005. Born on March 9, 1945, Rader was one of four sons raised by Dorothia May Rader and William Elven Rader. By his own account, he developed sadistic sexual fantasies about torturing trapped and helpless women during childhood.
He also admitted to torturing, killing, and hanging small animals, and engaged in voyeurism, auto-erotic asphyxiation, and cross-dressing fetishes, often spying on female neighbors while wearing women’s clothing, including stolen underwear. During the so-called cooling-off periods between murders, Rader photographed himself bound in women’s clothing and wearing a female mask. He later said he was acting out the role of his victims as part of a sexual fantasy. Despite these hidden behaviors, he was widely regarded in his community as normal, polite, and well-mannered.
Rader graduated from Wichita Heights High School and attended Kansas Wesleyan University, but dropped out after one year with mediocre grades. He served in the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1970, then moved to Park City, a Wichita suburb, where he worked in the meat department of an IGA supermarket. In 1971, he married Paula Dietz, and the couple had two children, Carrie and Brian. After earning an associate degree in electronics from Butler County Community College in 1973, Rader graduated from Wichita State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in administration of justice in 1979.
From 1974 to 1988, he worked for ADT Security Services in Wichita, installing security alarms, often for homeowners concerned about the BTK murders. He also worked as a census field operations supervisor in the Wichita area before the 1990 federal census. Rader was an active member of Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and served as president of the church council. He also volunteered as a Cub Scout leader.
His wife was granted an emergency divorce on July 26, 2005, following his arrest, waiving the normal waiting period. In a 2019 interview with ABC News, his daughter Kerry said she still writes to her father and has forgiven him, but she continues to struggle to reconcile the man she knew with the BTK killer. The first known BTK killings took the lives of four members of the Otero family on January 15, 1974. Joseph Otero, 38, his wife Julie, 33, their son Joseph Jr.
, 9, and daughter Josephine, 11, were murdered in their Wichita home. Three older children, Charlie, Danny, and Carmen, were at school at the time and discovered the bodies. Rader confessed to these murders after his arrest in 2005. In October 1974, Rader left a letter hidden inside an engineering book in the Wichita Public Library detailing the Otero family murders.
Between the spring of 1974 and the winter of 1977, he killed three more women: Kathryn Bright on April 4, 1974, Shirley Vian Relford on March 17, 1977, and Nancy Fox on December 8, 1977. In early 1978, he sent another letter to Wichita television station KAKE claiming responsibility for the murders of the Oteros, Bright, Vian Relford, and Fox. In this second letter, he adopted the name BTK, which stood for “Bind, Torture, Kill. ” He demanded media attention, and it was finally revealed that Wichita did indeed have a serial killer.
In the letter, he claimed to be motivated to kill by “factor X,” a supernatural element he said also drove Jack the Ripper, Son of Sam, and the Hillside Strangler. On April 27, 1985, Rader murdered Marine Hedge, 53, then took her body to Christ Lutheran Church, where he was president of the church council, and photographed it in various bondage positions. He had previously stored black plastic sheets and other materials at the church in preparation for the murder. He dumped the body in a remote ditch and called the scheme “Project Cookie.
” Hedge’s body was discovered on May 5, 1985. After the murders of three members of the Fager family in Wichita in 1988, a letter was received from someone claiming to be the BTK killer. The author denied being responsible for the Fager murders while praising the killer for his “amazing work. ” It wasn’t until 2005 that it was proven the letter was written by Rader, but police do not believe he committed that crime.
Rader’s final known victim was Dolores Davis, murdered on January 19, 1991, and found on February 1, 1991, at 117th Street North and North Meridian Street in Park City. By 2004, the BTK investigation had gone cold. Then, in March 2004, the Wichita Eagle received a letter from someone calling himself “Bill Thomas Killman. ” The author claimed to have murdered Vicki Wegerle on September 16, 1986, and included photographs of the crime scene and a photocopy of her driver’s license, which had been stolen at the time of the crime.
Before this, it had not been proven conclusively that Wegerle was killed by BTK. Police collected DNA from under Wegerle’s fingernails and began the enormous task of DNA-testing hundreds of men. More than 1,300 DNA samples were collected and later destroyed by court order. In May 2004, Wichita’s KAKE television station received a letter containing chapter headings for the BTK story, fake IDs, and a word puzzle.
On June 9, a package taped to a stop sign at the intersection of First and Kansas roads contained graphic depictions of the Otero murders and a sketch titled “The Sexual Thrill Is My Bill,” along with a chapter list for a proposed book titled “The BTK Story. ” In July, a package dropped into a public library’s return slot contained even stranger material. In October 2004, a manila envelope dropped into a UPS box held cards with images of terror and child bondage, a poem threatening the lead investigator, Lieutenant Ken Landwehr, and a false autobiography containing numerous details about Rader’s life. In December 2004, Wichita police received another package from the BTK killer, discovered in Murdoch Park.
It contained Nancy Fox’s driver’s license, a doll with symbolically bound hands and feet, and a plastic bag tied over its head. More postcards were sent to KAKE in February 2005, and a cereal box found in a rural area contained another bound doll. Rader asked police in letters whether his writings could be traced if they were stored on a floppy disk. Police responded through an advertisement published in the Wichita Eagle, stating that using the disk was safe.
On February 16, 2005, Rader sent a purple 1. 44 megabyte Memorex floppy disk to Fox affiliate KSAS-TV in Wichita, along with a letter, a gold-colored necklace with a large medallion, and a photocopy of the cover of John Sandford’s 1989 novel “Rules of Prey,” about a serial killer. Investigators discovered metadata embedded in a deleted Microsoft Word document still stored on the floppy disk. Unbeknownst to Rader, the metadata mentioned Christ Lutheran Church, and the document had last been modified by “Dennis.
” An internet search revealed that the church council’s president was a Dennis Rader. When investigators drove by Rader’s house, a black Jeep Cherokee, matching the type of vehicle seen in Home Depot surveillance footage, was parked outside. It was strong circumstantial evidence, but detaining him required more direct evidence. A warrant was obtained for the testing of a pap smear taken from Rader’s daughter at the Kansas State University Medical Clinic.
DNA tests revealed a familial match between the pap smear and the sample from Wegerle’s fingernails, indicating the killer was related to Rader’s daughter. This, along with other evidence, led to Rader’s arrest. Rader was arrested shortly after noon on February 25, 2005, while driving near his home in Park City. “Do you know why you’re going downtown, Mr.
Rader? ” an officer asked. “I have suspicions, why,” Rader replied.